


History Class

by bocje_ce_ustu



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Erik stays, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21718426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu
Summary: The words are out of his mouth like he knew they would, still as he listens to them resonating through Erik’s mind, he can’t quite figure out if they’re the wrong thing to say. They’re true, though, and all too often Erik reprimands him for his efforts to cushion truth and shield feelings, so at least he’ll appreciate that.“There’s a vacant position for a history class teacher next semester. I was thinking about you.”
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr & Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67
Collections: Secret Mutant Exchange 2019





	History Class

**Author's Note:**

  * For [populuxe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/populuxe/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "One of my favorite things to read is an Erik who's, for lack of a better phrase, figured things out, especially in established relationship fic. No particular requests plot-wise, I'd just love to see Erik who's found some kind of balance."  
> This is not exactly a balance, but it's the beginning of one. I hope I managed to do justice to your lovely prompt. Happy reading!

It has been months since the mansion’s destruction, months since its reconstruction, even, so it can’t exactly be called lingering. At least, Charles has been hoping that much. Hoping maybe this time, after all this time, Erik will stay.

There is no inconspicuous amount of selfishness in Charles’s wish, he knows, but there is little he can do about it anyway. Guilt has always sat all too uneasily on him.

So when he looks at Erik quietly prolonging his stay, quietly resuming what had been his usual place at the kitchen table or by the fire all those years ago, quietly claiming back every little corner of Charles’s home as if it were (again, _again_ ) his as well, Charles tries his best to shove aside the intimate knowledge that Erik is only staying because the thought of starting anew somewhere else and seeing his new life shattered again is too painful to entertain. Yet.

These things change, Charles knows, and there’s no guarantee Erik won’t find a new drive to life, to love, to a new family of his own, outside Westchester walls. It’s true years weight on them both now, but time has done little to quench the fire in Erik’s heart, only pushing him harder towards his goals the older he became.

Charles is one to talk, burning as he is, not a flicker dimmer than the first day.

But there’s something else slithering its way through Erik’s slow repossession of his place, and it’s a creeping restlessness in everything he does, now that he hasn’t got anything to do with himself. The creeping restlessness of not knowing if he’s overstayed his welcome yet.

  
***

  
The words are out of his mouth like he knew they would, still as he listens to them resonating through Erik’s mind, he can’t quite figure out if they’re the wrong thing to say. They’re true, though, and all too often Erik reprimands him for his efforts to cushion truth and shield feelings, so at least he’ll appreciate that.

“There’s a vacant position for a history class teacher next semester. I was thinking about you.”

“You want me to earn my stay here now, Charles?” Erik decides on a snicker, so Charles knows he’s dithering, and begins to think this was indeed the wrong thing to say. Being who he is, he perseveres.

“You know this will always be your home. I was only thinking having something to do on a steady basis would make you good.”

“As in less inclined to leave.”

Erik knows him too well.

“As in less inclined to carry through little futuristic renovations to justify your stay.”

Too bad Charles knows him just as well.

“No,” Erik says, and that’s his answer on the matter.  
  


***

  
Erik spends the whole summer break poured over history texts, be the hefty tomes of the family library or the more recent manuals Charles has surreptitiously bought after one huff too many from (decidedly-not-studying-history-materials) Erik at the ones in use.

“There’s next to nothing about us,” Erik says once, nose buried into a high school manual of contemporary history. (Charles had a hard time keeping a straight face while he was supposedly being distracted by their chess match and Erik was trying very hard not to think about levitating the school registers out of Charles’s desk. Charles had then made a copy of his prospective class’s last syllabus and slipped it under Erik’s door, lest Erik spent too much time over the technicalities of the Civil War or Magellan’s travels.) He’s scowling behind his reading glasses, a new reality Charles still needs to adjust to. He’s not sure reading glasses ever looked so good before Erik started to wear them.

“I certainly hope so.” Charles can’t even begin to imagine Erik explaining to their kids about that time he almost single-handedly jump-started a nuclear war, thank God those files were classified to begin with.

“Not us _us_. Us.” Erik turns the book towards him, open on the all too familiar evolution of the II World War. Charles’s stomach sinks. “It’s all battle strategies, and dates, and numbers. What are we teaching the children if we’re not teaching them about… about what happened, about cruelty, and prejudice, and indifference?”

“ _We_?” echoes Charles, letting a flicker of amusement glimpse through the churning in his stomach.

Erik’s brow furrows, but he says nothing, plunging his nose back into the manual.  
  
  


*******  
  
  


It’s the terrace incident – at least, that’s how Erik calls it to himself – that makes Charles snap. But, truth be told, that’s only because 1) it’s the last in a long list of less obvious optimizations to the mansion’s structure Erik has lent his powers to, and 2) it’s the only truly aesthetic one. By now, Erik is well aware of the fact that people are obnoxiously ungrateful and disgustingly tasteless, so he pretends to keep forgetting about it for a week or two until he restores the terrace to its bleak, unappealing original form.

Truth be told, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do anymore. Charles has welcomed him to stay for as long as he likes, of course he has, but Erik is reluctant to mould himself into just another cog of a mechanism he never truly believed in. It would be so easy to slip back into the routine of a cocooned life, into the safety of the last dregs of the family that chose him even before he chose them, and forget about everything else going on with the world outside the mansion walls.

And it would be so easy to fall back into the easy intimacy that envelopes him with every chess match, every fireside conversation, every light-hearted touch, so much so that sometimes he wonders whether he’s falling or already knee-deep without even noticing.

He tried to imagine himself teaching the kids how to shape their budding powers, harnessing and wielding them without shame, like Beast and Mystique do, but every time he does, Nina’s face comes to the forefront of his mind, her curious, sweet eyes as she discovered her own powers, her fury and fear in her last moments.

He can’t do it. Not now, not until the wound has scarred, if it ever will.

The accident to one of their adjunct teachers comes in such a timely manner Erik suspects Charles has made her unsee the last step on a flight of stairs or something only to present him with the opportunity.

It should be frightening how fast his mind is made up, without him having much of a say in it.

Charles, damn him, didn’t really need to ask.  
  


***

  
There’s a meagre satisfaction in a notorious reputation.

The classroom falls silent as soon as he crosses the threshold, and were it not for the buzzing in his ears he would be tempted to check if there’s someone here with him at all. Instead he drops his file onto the desk, forgoing the roll call altogether, and just walks to the large blackboard mounted on the wall behind it.

He traces the figures with trembling fingers, chalk screeching at every new line, until the whole sequence of six digits stares back at him in all of its hateful anonymity. He turns and lets his eyes roam across the room, searching the gaze of the two dozen students looking up at him for some kind of recognition.

Until he speaks, he’s not even sure the words will get out at all.

“Do you know what this is?”  
  


***

  
Charles finds him at the southern corner of the grounds during recess, arms folded over the balustrade.

“If it’s about the crying twins, yes, that was me.”

He can feel Charles wheeling over next to him, a faint tendril of telepathy like a warm gaze at the edge of his conscience.

“How do you feel?”

Erik’s hands find purchase on the coarse marble surface.

“Like shit.”

A wave of affection dusted with pride washes over him, contrasting with Charles’s following words.

“If you want to quit, for whatever reason…”

“It would be a shame, after all I’ve gone through to make it look like an accident.”

Charles whips his head and looks at him, really looks at him, and then his shoulders sag in relief as he offers Erik a wry smile. “You got me there.”

Erik gave a short, strained laugh. “I was almost convinced that was your doing.”

Charles shakes his head, but doesn’t allow Erik’s remark to distract him.

“You did a great job.”

There’s a good number of scathing or bragging remarks he could answer with, but no one crosses his lips. His eyes fill up and sting, and he clenches his jaw. He never thought he’d forget, but he’d forgotten how bad it could hurt, even after all this time, just trying to make the unspeakable into words.

Charles sneaks up a hand, treading his fingers between his, and squeezes.

And the worst thing is, he would do it again, and again, and again.  
  
  



End file.
